A march and vigil to end gun violence was held Saturday in the conservative city of Boerne.
Vigil organizer Susan Dollar gave instructions over the bullhorn to prevent any kind of fighting from breaking out.
“Please do not engage. We've already had an engagement in the parking lot, so don't engage,” she said.
A pair of Boerne police officers were there.
Chris Dingman assured the group of about 35 they would maintain safety.
“Don't engage, let us take care of it. We'll handle anything else that comes with it,” he said.
With Boerne being a very conservative town, Dingman had already traced the vigil route beforehand.
“There's nobody out there protesting or anything like that,“ Dingman said. “I did a safety sweep with dogs, too.”
With that, the march began — heading toward Main Street. As to what the vigil’s objectives were — there was some variety of opinions — Marilyn Harrington listed hers.
“Background checks. We would love to see that. We would like to see people lock up their guns at home so our little children don't play with them,” Harrington said as several car horns tapped. “We would like red flag laws and we would like to ban assault rifles.”
Albert Garcia watched sitting on main plaza’s short limestone wall as the vigil passed.
“I'm seeing that they want to end gun violence, which is great. I agree with it,“ Garcia said. “But I don't see how they're going to do it by getting rid of guns.”
“We're not trying to take away anybody's guns,” Susan Dollar said. “We just want some common sense when it comes to gun regulations.”
She said the availability of guns makes modern-day life dangerous in ways it’s never been when she grew up.
“It is so easy now, especially in Texas. No regulation, no requirements,” she said.
Richard Caldwell carried a large American flag and led the vigil from the library down to Main Street.
“Can you imagine this generation of students from K-12, including college students that are facing this ever-present danger of being shot, just going to school? That's unbelievable,” Caldwell said.
Albert Garcia cited the Second Amendment as part of a built-in protection against tyranny.
“If we give up our rights, then yes, we should be subjected to whatever tyrant wants to tell us what to do, Garcia said. “That's why we have the right to bear arms.”
Pressed for what his mass shooting fix would be, he said he thinks the fix might be from law enforcement and psychologists.
“Somebody that wants to do evil will do evil,” he said. “And the problem is that people that have mental health issues, even if they're criminally pre-disposed to do something like that, they’re treated with kid gloves.”
Susan Dollar cited new school defensive techniques as a metric of how much has changed, and not for the better.
“School shouldn't be a war zone and they shouldn't be so scared,” she said. “I mean, to teach a six-year-old how to hide from a shooter is unconscionable. Think, people…think!”
At this time and in Boerne, there’s no end in sight for the problem of mass shootings, or the views that are at opposite ends of the spectrum.
According to the gun violence archive, there have been more than 300 mass shootings in America so far this year.
